His Chair
by 0perJuice
Summary: Fred Weasley's death left behind many things and people, but some of them are hard to ignore. A look at how grief can be represented in the simplest of things, his chair.


It was a chair; just an old chair. Faded blue, paint falling off in ribbons, knocks and scrapes from this or that escapade. Sturdy, four legs, a cushion tied to the seat, it was a good chair. It had survived more games of king of the mountain than many chairs, and more time haphazardly tilted back on its two legs than any chair. It was in the middle of the table. It was a center chair. The chair sagged a little in the middle, and perhaps the back looked as if it might break if one leaned back on it. But it hadn't broken and a sagging chair is more comfortable.

It was an empty chair; just an empty chair. No one sat in the chair; no one looked at the chair if they could help it. There was nothing horribly wrong with the chair itself, just no one wanted to use it. No one abused the chair, or leaned back on it. It was in the middle of the table, but every other chair was just a little bit farther away from it than it used to be. The sagging chair didn't comfort anybody, and the almost broken back would not be fixed. It wouldn't break, and no one wanted to see how comfortable the sagging chair could be.

It was his chair; he no longer sat in his chair. He no longer sat in any chair. At dinner everyone avoided looking at the chair, at his chair. There was something horribly wrong with this chair being empty. There were no more outstretched arms or rocked back moments. He had been the middle of the table, he had been the middle of the family, the center that held it all together, and he was gone. He had laughed when the only appropriate response was to cry; he told a joke when everyone else had been scared. He had died laughing; no one could fill that chair.

Most nights it wasn't obvious that the chair was purposely empty; the home was no longer as full as it had once been. Different kids came home on different nights to have their moms cooking, to be together, but never enough that the chair stood out. She had wanted to replace all of her chairs at one point, they were old they were worn; she could never replace that chair. The chair where he had fallen when attempting to jump across the room without touching the floor at age 7; the chair where he had received his Hogwarts letter at 11: the chair where he had announced that George and he were going to open a joke shop at 16; the chair were he sat when George had lost his ear and wept at age 18; the chair where George had sat, just once, when he came from burying his other half at 19. She could never replace that chair.

It wasn't really an empty chair that was the problem. A chair could never fill the silence in the conversation, the unfinished phrases that George started expecting someone, anyone to finish. A chair could never push far enough to get that tone from mum, or get Ginny to shriek in that particular manner the occupant of the chair had loved. The chair could never ruffle Ron's hair and tease him about his 'ickle' crush, it could never except back a brother who had betrayed it. A chair was not a person, and even more importantly a chair was not that person.

George knew the chair was not a part of Fred, he knew the chair constituted nothing more than pieces of wood fashioned together in such a way that they could withstand a tremendous force, but the chair had supported Fred. The chair had never failed him. Even when he abused it, and tumbled off it, the chair had stood, perhaps a little weathered, perhaps a little stained, but it was real, it lasted.

It was not an empty chair that the family did not want to see. What the family did not want to see, was that the chair would always be empty. It could never be filled. George would try to laugh just as much as he always had, but he wouldn't have someone to understand the joke. Ron would try to blush whenever George took the mickey, but it was Fred who knew how to get under his skin. Percy would try to believe that he hadn't caused the death, but who distracts someone by telling a joke in the middle of battle?

Harry Potter's birthday was the first big bash after that day, don't misunderstand, there were after parties and celebrations throughout Britain, but not for this family. Harry's birthday was held at the burrow, and the chair was empty. Eyes skimmed over it, never stopping. Mrs Weasley broke down before the party when she realized she had done a place setting at _that_ chair. She thought about taking it away, putting it in storage, moving it out of sight, but the hole was there regardless of the chair, and really didn't he deserve a spot? She put the place setting away, but the chair remained.

Harry lifted a toast at his birthday dinner to the chair. He said some words about Fred that had been true, and he took a sip in his memory. They all took a sip in his memory. That was a start of a tradition, a tradition it took George ten years to make fun of, the "chair toast" he called it on Harry's birthday ten years later, an admittedly weak joke, but still a joke. They toasted the chair every year, every party, and the expanding broad of children made the toast as well. Sometimes the children's toasts were funny, and sometimes they were sad. Fred Jr. usually just held up his glass toasting the ghost he was named after, one birthday he said "to Fred my namesake, the only name that makes dad cry. I'll make him laugh for you". George couldn't even look at the chair with that toast.

On the fifth anniversary of Fred's death George took the chair to the little hill where the grave stood. He sat on the chair all day. Five years without Fred was a long time, but every five years from here on out would be without Fred. Every five years George returned with that chair to the little hill. His family would stop by throughout the day, but on that one day no one talked to him. No one tried to comfort him, it was him, and Fred's chair, and Fred's memory, and that was personal. One year it rained, and the chair lost even more paint than had previously fallen, but every five years the chair was out there.

Chairs break eventually, everything breaks eventually. It was perhaps fitting that the chair broke nineteen years after Fred's death, because George broke nineteen years after his birth. It happened as all such things do, an accident-one child wildly careening through the kitchen the other child following and throwing fizzing whizbees. It could have at least been one of _their_ products George thought, but really there was no other way for the chair to die than through a Zonko's product. Fred would have liked that George thought.

The next year, twenty years, when George went to the grave he didn't stay the whole day, and he didn't sit in silence. He talked. It took twenty years, and one broken chair, but George lived through it. He toasted the chair still on holidays; in its place they put a toilet seat. His mother only let it come out for family functions, but he knew Fred would have loved it. Twenty years is a long time for a chair to try to be someone, but in twenty years the chair still represented everything that was missing, everything that would remain missing. After all it wasn't just a chair, it was the center. And the center was what held everything together.


End file.
